Society's Expectations & Too Many Complications {Finalist}

Chapter 17

Lovely is not quite how I would describe my mental condition after all these lovelies. Lovely constitutes a glowing complexion, a wide smile and a sane mind. I feel like tearing my hair out is an adequate response. Except for the fact that I actually liked my hair, so tearing out Miss Winter's hair would have to do.

After the end of a picnic that lasted far too long and had far too many people, we packed up and travelled home, feeling exhausted from a day of far too many lovelies.

The words I speak to Mother when I arrive home will be far from lovely. They will rival the tempestuous outburst of volcanoes and will have Mother spewing equal amounts on my language and how I should be shipped off to the convent.

A joyless tired goodbye is exchanged all around as I am dropped at my home, though Sebastian gave me a heady wink which I return with a mental glare. I would have actually glared, but I am too tired to make the effort. He probably deciphered that squinting my eyes at him means trouble however.

"Mother!" I called out to the monster. Like mother, like daughter, I thought furiously. The woman messed around my romantic life as much as the GrandMonster.

"Rosalia, shouting is quite inappropriate," she chided me, sweeping imperiously into view and looking down her nose at me. "Have I never taught you anything?"

"I. Cannot. Believe. You," I stated, splitting my sentence because I am too tired to make the trouble to recreate an entire sentence. I'm building up the large rant.

"Enunciate, dear," the witch reminded me, patting her hair down, as if it wasn't restrained by a half-dozen pins.

"Stop poking your fingers through my marriageable future," I warned her, feeling as prickly as a hedgehog. "That future of mine may be a mess but it is my mess and not your mess. That means unless I ask you to mess it up even more, I will ask you. Have I asked you anything lately in helping me in that aspect?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Mother replied flippantly, purposely avoiding the question, as it would have been: no dear, I did not ask to mess up your maybe marriage even more. She does not quite understand the depth of my irritation.

Let me make it obvious.

"You shall not invite my suitors," I continued, my voice a consistent spike of edginess. "To a dinner in which you clearly expect me to host." It was like she was living out unfulfilled fantasies through her meddling fingers.

"Well how else are you going to find marriage?" she snapped, abandoning all pretence of being the perfect mother. "A month has gone by, yet no son-in-law has appeared!"

"Mother," I said slowly. "One... two.... three. Let us count together. One. Two. Th-"

"Stop being childish!" Mother hissed. "I know very well of your precious time! Your father was too good to give you that. A young girl like you should know her place when in consideration of her parents."

"Three months is hardly excess when you are searching for the man who will spend the rest of your life with you," I protested, hardly believing she thought that I could conjure the perfect gentleman out of thin air. Perfect be dratted, not enough gentlemen stay around as it is.

"In my opinion," she sniffed. "On any accord, my dear Rosalia, this dinner is extremely important and will be a great help towards you, in sorting out which hand you will choose."

"Who is included in the guest list?" I asked, afraid of the answer.

"Well, the guest list involves Lord Henry Chalmers of Wilkinshire-"